


clean

by canadino



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadino/pseuds/canadino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killua's never really liked baths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	clean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ataraxia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ataraxia/gifts).



Killua's never really liked baths. He remembers, the earliest points of memory, being given careful sponge baths as an infant, but never by his mother and definitely never by his father. The purpose of these baths, done almost autonomously by the butlers of the family who sat him carefully in a cold metal bowl and ran rough sponges across his baby skin, was to keep him clean and healthy. The water was lukewarm at best. At three, when he was able to strangle a man in the depths of night and identify the jugular blindfolded, he was allowed to bathe himself, but timed to five minutes and the water held weak but steady electric currents. Baths were only meant to be another necessary but bothersome part of life - blood needed to be cleaned carefully from underneath fingernails and all kinds of identifiable evidence needed to be removed and disposed of immediately after a hit. At five, Killua thinks his parents purposefully make him carry out messy hits just so he learns how to bathe quickly and efficiently. Any bath that doesn't leave him spotless and devoid of anything incriminating earns him three hours of harsh training. So Killua knows how to wash himself, and how to wash himself perfectly.

So, it's a little daunting when he takes a bath with Gon. It's meant to be enjoyable - fun, even. He watches Gon prepare it because he doesn't know how. Gon heats the water, fills the tub, and gets out the shampoo and soap and water bowls. Killua isn't scared of anything, he's seen everything that could possibly frighten a man, but his hands shake when Gon finally turns to him and says, "It's ready!" 

It certainly isn't his first time (he gets a little embarrassed thinking about that, the thought of Gon having to gently prompt him into doing what everyone does bathing), but he still looks at Gon at each step of the way to make sure he's doing it right. The water looks warm and comforting; the steam says it is, and its clarity indicates there's nothing harmful or painful in running it over his skin. Still, Killua hesitates; he bites his lip and advances as if facing a particularly challenging victim. Gon grins, wide and genuine. 

"Don't be so tense, Killua. Baths are supposed to make you feel better!" 

"I," Killua says, "know." Gon is running his fingers, thick with white suds, through his hair at such a leisurely speed Killua feels some kind of deathly urgency. But there's no penalty for doing things at his own pace. He watches Gon fashion his hair into a spike, and then a coif, and he laughs like it's just the normalest thing. Killua squeezes shampoo into his hands and wills himself to slow down a little, allows himself to take in the scent of the shampoo and how it feels against his fingers. 

"Now you look weird. You're going too slow." 

Killua grits his teeth, but Gon doesn't mean it in a cruel way. He's meticulous, so he's still going at his hair even after Gon has thrown a bowl of water over his and pulls the soap through until the suds swirl around the drain on the floor. "I'll wash your back for you, Killua," Gon offers when Killua is done. 

"You don't need to," Killua says. "I can reach every inch of my back." A proper assassin can reach every nook and cranny of their bodies, knows their own human anatomy so well as to know its weak spots and where to hide a blade. In such, he can detach and reattach his joints and flex his muscles so he can do this. Gon frowns.

"But it's what friends do," he says. "They wash each other's backs." He looks so hurt about it that Killua lets him do what he wants. He figures he's improved a lot if the feel of Gon's hands against his back do not immediately put him on edge. Not even his own family's touch makes him relax - especially Illumi, who never touches him with a friendly intent. But Gon's hands are rough and calloused but careful and at a distance to reassure Killua that things are okay. "Wow," Gon says, almost every time they bathe together. "Your back has muscles I didn't even know existed!"

"It's eons before you can even develop them like that," Killua brags. Gon punishes him by grabbing his sides; Killua has long since dulled the sensitivity along the sides of his torso, but Gon's skilled enough to bring a laugh rumbling up his throat. 

The long hot soak afterwards is the most foreign to him. He waits for Gon to go first, never truly convinced it's a normal, acceptable thing to sit in a big pool of water for a long time. It'll be some time before he'll go in first, he thinks, and risks having Gon laugh at him and say,  _no one takes a bath like that_! Gon wouldn't laugh at him though, rationality says, but sometimes Gon can be spiteful. 

"Isn't this the best?" Gon asks. "This is the life." It doesn't sound like him, and Killua suspects he's just parroting what he's heard adults say but really - Killua sinks down so the water touches his chin, and he thinks it's not so bad after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lexi because she is a dirty shota pervert who got me into this damned series to begin with. We'll see about that...


End file.
